NORDIC HONG KONG (3,421 teu) delivered

China’s Gouangzhou Wenchong shipyard has delivered the first lengthened version of its Wenchong 2800 design, the 3,421 teu ship NORDIC HONG HONG.

The ship will be managed by GNS Shipping, a joint venture of the Hong Kong-based Guoyu Group and the German Nordic Hamburg Shipping. It has been chartered by Niledutch for whom she will trade as NILEDUTCH CHEETAH on the carrier’s Far East to South and West Africa loop. On this service, the ship replaces the 2,674 teu charter ship APULIA, which Niledutch is expected to return to her owners.

With the lengthening of the ‘Wenchong 2800’ type into something that could be called ‘Wenchong 3400’ type, the shipyard has de-facto ‘merged’ two vessel designs into one. Gouangzhou Wenchong so far built 12 of the 212,60m long 2,800 teu versions. Meanwhile, Rongcheng Shenfei Shipyard at Shidao has already built three 3,400 teu container ships of a type known as ‘Maxbox’ design. Rongsheng’s design essentially represented a lengthened version of the Wenchong type and now that Gouangzhou Wenchong also builds the long variant, the types have become indistinguishable.

All four of the long Maxbox variants have been chartered to Niledutch and they trade alongside each other in the same service. The three Rongsheng-built ships sail under the charter names NILEDUTCH BEIJING, NILEDUTCH LEOPARD and NILEDUTCH HIPPO and they are now joined by the Wenchong-built NILEDUTCH CHEETAH.

The 228m long and 32.20m wide ships are fully geared with four cranes of 45 tons and they provide electricity for up to 500 reefer boxes.